Big Island Hits 40 Hospitalizations as Infections Continue to Rise

Hawai´i County hit yet another unfortunate COVID-19 benchmark on Tuesday, Aug. 24, when Civil Defense reported there are now 40 individuals hospitalized on the Big Island due to infections.

A total of 100 new cases were identified on the Big Island Tuesday, where 1,671 infections are currently active.

The Department of Health (DOH) has reported that the State and Island of Hawai´i have been experiencing wide-spread community-based transmission of the coronavirus for several weeks.

Kona Community Hospital reported that as of Tuesday, a total of 13 patients were hospitalized at its facility in South Kona. Four of those patients are in the Intensive Care Unit and three were on ventilators. A total of nine deaths have occurred at the hospital since the pandemic began.

Queen’s North Hawai´i Community Hospital announced on Tuesday that it is expanding the use of Regeneron’s REGEN-COV2, which is a combination of two monoclonal antibodies. The intravenous treatment is administered to outpatients 12 years and older with mild to moderate coronavirus symptoms w ho are at risk of developing severe infections.

The treatment is most effective within 10 days of contracting the virus. The hospital said the timing makes it imperative that people get tested as soon as they experience possible symptoms so as to receive the drug, if necessary, as quickly as possible.

“When the pandemic started, there was no specific treatment for COVID-19. With monoclonal antibody therapy, there is now an easy treatment that takes only 2-3 hours to help prevent severe symptoms and hospitalization,” said QNHCH President Cindy Kimikawa.

DOH reported 565 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, bringing the statewide total to 57,235. One new COVID-related death was also reported.

To date, a total of 1,833,678 doses of the vaccine have been administered statewide, with 62% of the population fully vaccinated at 70.4% who have received at least one shot.